How to Replace Front Brakes 2009-16 Chevy Traverse

Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!

With the vehicle on the ground, I'm going to use a breaker bar and a 22 millimeter socket to loosen the lug nuts. Raise and support your vehicle with a jack and jack stands. We're using our two-post lift. Use the socket to finish removing the lug nuts. Take a couple of lug nuts and just thread them on lightly. Use a dead blow or a rubber mallet, hit on the tire. It'll knock it free. The lug nuts will keep the wheel from falling off. Now it's loose. See. Finish taking the lug nuts off. It's going to support it so doesn't fall.

Let me grab the hub and knuckle and just turn it out this way so it's a little easier to see what I'm doing. Take a large flat bladed screwdriver and kind of wedge it in here. We're going to pull the brake caliper out and press the pistons. This way when I go to remove the caliper slide bolts, the caliper will come off the pistons easier.

There's 13 millimeter bolts on the bottom and the top, going to remove these using a 13 millimeter box wrench and break them free. Put these bolts aside to reuse them. Slide the caliper off. Just rest it like that. Grab a bungee cord. That gets it right there. I just don't want it to hang on this rubber hose. You can damage it.

Our brake pads, pretty well worn, just kind of slide them out of the hardware. If they don't want to come out that easily, you can just use the flat blade screwdriver to pop them out. I'm not worried about damaging the surface of them because I'm going to replace them. We need to remove the bottom and top caliper mounting bolts. They are 21 millimeter. I'm using a large ratchet to break them free. Before I take that one all the way out, break this one free. I'll hold on the bracket, take the bolt out, and pull the whole bracket out.

You need to remove the screw that's holding the rotor to the hub. It's a T-30 Torx bit. Pull that out. Reuse it. See if this comes free. Nope, rusted there. Let's spray some rust penetrant in here, a little bit in here, and try to work it down between the rotor and the hub. It can go around the wheel studs. Thread on the lug nut. I don't want the rotor to fall, but not all the way. I want to have it so it has some space to move, and I'll take a dead blow and just knock the rotor. It might take one hit, could take a bunch of hits. You just got to do it till it comes free. We're replacing these rotors, so I'm not too worried about damaging them.

Here's our original pad rotors from our vehicle and our brand new ones from 1aauto.com. They're an exact match for the originals. You can see how worn out these are compared to the new ones. They've got the same wear indicator in them, same bolt pattern, and same screw hole opening. These will fit great and work great on our vehicle. Then clean and reuse our caliper hardware, it's stainless and just needs to be cleaned up.

Use some brake parts cleaner, a wire brush, and a rag. You can also check your slide pins to make sure they're operating. They should pull out with some resistance but move in and out nice and smoothly. These ones do. We're going to leave them alone. No need to take them out and grease them. Just take some brake parts cleaner. Spray it down. Use a wire brush. Then also clean it down with a rag. Do the same for both sides. We could reuse our caliper mounting bolts. We just need to clean off the old thread locker, so I'm going to use some brake parts cleaner. Spray it down, and the wire brush, clean up both of them. Just make sure you get it all off of there.

If you have access to it, you can use a 14 by two thread dye. And we'll thread this in here and we'll clean the threads out. But the other method, you can just use a wire brush. That should thread in pretty easily. You may need to put a sock on it, but it will clean all the junk out of the threads. That's our old thread locker out of there. You can see it's all in the dye now. Put the rotor on backwards. Clean down the oil that they're packed in so they don't flash rust. Use brake parts cleaner. Wipe off any excess from the rag. Put the rotor over.

If your hub was extremely rusty, now it would be the time to clean it. Take a wire brush and clean this all off. This one's in good shape. I'm going to leave it alone. Now I'll line up the threaded hole here with the opening in the rotor. That's for the retention screw. That right in place. Install the screw. Just tighten it down. It's not a lot of torque. It's just to hold the rotor in place while you work. Then clean out the front of the rotor.

Same thing, it's packaged with the oil to prevent it from flash rusting. Before I reinstall the bracket, I'm going to take some medium strength threadlocker and apply it to the threads of the caliper bracket bolts. Do this to both of them. Reinstall the bracket. Get it lined up. I'm going to get the top one caught first. I may need to move the bracket around, thread it in my hand. We can use a socket to tighten it down. Then torque the caliper bracket bolts to 129 foot-pounds. When it clicks, you've reached the correct torque.

Make sure that the brake pad surface is nice and clean, has no grease or dirt on it. Just going to give it a light spray with some brake parts cleaner, don't need to soak it. Apply some brake caliper grease to the ears. The brake pad with the wear indicator will go on the inside. The outside curve will match the outside curve of the rotor. Switch hands here. I'm going to slide it right into the clips. Just pull them into place. Do the same thing for the other pad.

I'm using a large C-clamp and an old brake pad. We need to compress the two pistons back into the caliper. You don't need to crack the bleeder screw. We don't need to remove the brake line. You may have some fluid come out at the master cylinder because if there's too much fluid in the system, it has come down to fill up the extra space that is left by having these pistons this far out and these pads worn down.

You may have to go up and take some out of the master cylinder, or you'll have some spill out and you'll just have to clean it up. We're going to compress this in, just turn. I've taken it off of the bungee cord. I'm just going to gently turn this in. Little by little these pistons will start to retract. The reasons why we have to compress these pistons because these new pads are a lot thicker and you won't be able to get the caliper back on if the pistons are all the way out.

You can also see these are going in nice and easy. That tells me the caliper's in good shape and the pistons aren't seized. The pad is starting to get down. I can see the seals are starting to squish out. That's about as far as I need to go. I don't need to go all the way in, so I'm going to remove this. Put that aside and clamp out of here. Don't forget your bungee cord that's hanging on the suspension. Get rid of that.

The caliper can go back on to the bracket. The slide pins do have a flat spot. It's going to match the flat spot on the calipers. You need to turn them, both the top and the bottom. Don't look so good. That will sit in place. Reinstall the bolts. Torque the caliper slide pin bolts to 47 foot-pounds. Once it clicks, it's exactly where it needs to be. You don't need to go any further.

Start the lug nuts by hand. I'm going to use the socket, thread these down, re-torque them. Put the vehicle on the ground. Torque the lug nuts in a cross pattern to 140 foot-pounds. Before you start, move the vehicle. Gently press on the brake pedal. This will bring the caliper, the cylinders out that we've compressed to meet the pads, and you'll feel it start to build up pressure. You don't need to smash it to the floor. Just gently pump it until it builds up pressure, just like that.

Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1AAuto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.

How to Replace Front Brakes 2009-16 Chevy Traverse

step 1 :Removing the Wheel

step 2 :Removing the Brake Pads

step 3 :Removing the Brake Rotor

step 4 :Preparing the New Brake Pads and Rotors

step 5 :Installing the New Brake Rotor

step 6 :Installing the New Brake Pads

step 7 :Reattaching the Wheel

step 8 :Testing the Brakes

Tools needed

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Chevrolet GMC Buick Saturn Front Semi-Metallic Premium G-Coated Performance Brake Pad & Rotor Kit TRQ Performance BKA12405

Part Details:

How to Replace Front Brakes 2001-06 BMW 325Ci

How to Replace Front Brakes 2009-16 Chevy Traverse

step 1 :Removing the Wheel 0:29

step 2 :Removing the Brake Pads 1:32

step 3 :Removing the Brake Rotor 3:09

step 4 :Preparing the New Brake Pads and Rotors 5:15

step 5 :Installing the New Brake Rotor 6:55

step 6 :Installing the New Brake Pads 8:23

step 7 :Reattaching the Wheel 11:33

step 8 :Testing the Brakes 12:10

Tools needed

Shop Products

Chevrolet GMC Buick Saturn Front Semi-Metallic Premium G-Coated Performance Brake Pad & Rotor Kit TRQ Performance BKA12405

Part Details:

How to Replace Front Brakes 2001-06 BMW 325Ci

step 1 :Removing the Wheel

step 2 :Removing the Brake Pads

step 3 :Removing the Brake Rotor

step 4 :Preparing the New Brake Pads and Rotors

step 5 :Installing the New Brake Rotor

step 6 :Installing the New Brake Pads

step 7 :Reattaching the Wheel

step 8 :Testing the Brakes